


Snow at Christmastime

by tarysande



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 09:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17159501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarysande/pseuds/tarysande
Summary: “Mommy,” said Trixie plaintively, pushing a piece of chocolate cake around her plate. “Why don’t we ever get snow at Christmastime?”





	Snow at Christmastime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeoneAsGoodAsYou (the_wanlorn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/gifts).



“Mommy,” said Trixie plaintively, pushing a piece of chocolate cake around her plate. “Why don’t we ever get snow at Christmastime?”

Chloe smiled, pretended to go for the piece of cake, and was relieved when Trixie immediately scooped it up and gulped it down. “Because we live in Los Angeles, Monkey. Haven’t you guys talked about weather and climate in school?”

With a heavy sigh, Trixie replied, “Yeah. But it’s not fair.”

“Snow is overrated,” Maze added, ignoring Trixie’s plate and cutting herself a ridiculously large slab of devil’s food cake—her second. Trixie watched her with wide eyes, and Chloe started the mental countdown. 5-4-3-2—

“If Maze gets more cake, can I have some, too?”

“Little monkeys don’t need that much sugar three hours before bed.”

“But—”

Chloe gave her Mom Look #3—Don’t Push Your Luck, Young Lady—and Trixie subsided with a half-hearted huff.

“Scrooge,” said Maze, and offered Trixie a mouthful of cake from her own plate.

#

The next day—Christmas Eve, and Chloe _woefully_ unprepared because a particularly ugly case had kept her busy for most of December—a knock on the door was followed by its immediate opening, even though she was _sure_ she’d bolted it after Maze left.

“Good morning, Detective,” Lucifer greeted. “Dearie me, it is rather…” He gestured vaguely as he entered, pulling a suitcase. “‘Bah, humbug,’ isn’t it?”

She tried to see the room the way he must. The artificial tree listed halfway out of the box, undecorated. When she’d tried to plug it in, the pre-strung lights had been dead, and she’d _meant_ to go through and check them all, but that had been just before the third body dropped. A pile of fake boughs of holly spilled across the floor beside it, halls decidedly undecked. She didn’t even know where the box of ornaments was.

And that wasn’t counting the dishes from breakfast, Maze’s empty vodka bottle(s), the pile of laundry that had only made it halfway to the machine, and some kind of explosion of art supplies Trixie had abandoned mid-project.

“Don’t tell me you’re pro-Christmas,” Chloe replied.

Lucifer lifted an eyebrow. “What’s not to like? Gluttony, fulfilled desires, general debauchery. You missed a chorus line of sexy Santas at Lux last night. Shame.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought maybe the, you know,” she waved a hand at him, then in the general direction of the tree, “familial connection might put you off.”

“Come now, Detective. That’s not how it works. _Avoiding_ family is a long-standing Christmas tradition, is it not?” He glanced around the room, gazing into corners with exaggeratedly wide eyes. “Or have you hidden your mother in a closet?”

She made a face. “Mom’s in … I want to say Amsterdam? But it could be Brussels.”

“And you’re heartbroken.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t dislike spending time with the people I care about, Lucifer.”

“Well, yes. That is why I’m here.”

“Lucifer!” Trixie barreled out of her room, arms flung wide. “You’re here!”

Chloe noticed—but didn’t mention—that even though he had plenty of time to step out of Trixie’s way, he didn’t. He just glowered down at Trixie with an aggrieved air and said, “Child.”

Trixie still clung to Lucifer’s waist, and Chloe thought about calling her off, but since he wasn’t even squirming, she decided to see how long he’d let the hug last. Chloe said, “I’m not coming to see your Santas.”

His brief leer said he’d picked up her completely unintentional double entendre. “Of course not,” he said. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

“No one’s getting driving lessons until she’s sixteen.”

“Not that deal, Mommy,” said Trixie, giving Lucifer a final squeeze before removing herself. Under other circumstances—and perhaps involving completely different people—Chloe might have described the look Lucifer gave her daughter as fond. “I made a different one. But I’m not telling.” Trixie glared up at Lucifer. “And neither is Lucifer. Not yet.”

Lucifer’s shrug was liquid to the point of nonchalance. “My word is my bond, urchin, but you know my terms.”

Chloe sighed. “Lucifer.”

He lifted a hand. “Come now, Detective. ’Tis the season, as they say. Spawn?”

“I’m ready!” She turned around, and Chloe saw that she wore a stuffed-full backpack.

“Run along, then. Mazikeen is in the car.”

Chloe crossed her arms over her chest, already reaching for Mom Look #6—Over My Dead Body. She was thwarted by Trixie hugging her as enthusiastically as she’d hugged Lucifer. “Merry Christmas, Mommy,” she said. “Don’t be grumpy.”

The suitcase, Chloe discovered a moment later, was for her. Lucifer preceded her up the stairs, dropped it on the bed—it was Louis Vuitton, of course—and said, “I suppose you haven’t a sexy Santa costume of your own, have you?”

“Oh, I do,” she replied, dead serious. “The beard really makes it.”

“Kinky,” he replied, disappearing into her bathroom and returning a moment later with an armful of her toiletries. “Leave this part to me, darling. Collect up the gifts you doubtless purchased in August and have had wrapped since September, and bring them out to the car.”

“What did she ask you for?”

Lucifer drew a mimed zipper across his lips.

“Please tell me she didn’t promise an IOU.”

“Nothing untoward, I assure you, Detective. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she grumbled, even as she relented and shuffled out into the hall to retrieve the gifts from the secret spot in the linen closet where they’d been hidden since July.

#

The snow started not long after they began climbing into the mountains. It fell in delicate, drifting flakes, swirling around the car like dancers caught up in some private music. In the back seat, Trixie gazed out the window, wide-eyed and awed into silence. Lucifer, driving, smiled so briefly as he glanced in the rear-view mirror that Chloe almost thought she’d imagined it. Maze opened her eyes, glowered, and closed them again, arms folded over her chest.

“Did she ask for snow?” Chloe asked. “Because if she did, you really delivered.”

Lucifer chuckled. “And you think I’d bestir myself for a few flakes of frozen water, Detective? I did mention the sexy Santas, did I not?”

“Repeatedly.”

The smile he gave her was neither brief nor secret. “The most wonderful time of the year,” he said, and Chloe rolled her eyes.

#

When they pulled up to the lodge, the snow had long-since changed from drifting and delicate to heavy and wet and so dense even Lucifer had slowed to below the speed limit. Still, the building in front of them was welcoming and bright, its many golden lights spilling out to brighten the snow-thick darkness. The lights, Chloe realized, were flickering. They were candles in the windows, dozens and dozens of candles; if the lodge had electricity, it wasn’t functioning at the moment.

“Wow!” cried Trixie. “Look at it, Mommy! It’s like a Christmas card! With real snow!” She practically vibrated with excitement. “Can I go play in it?”

“Trixie, babe, let’s get ourselves sett—”

“Ugh, Decker, you’re so boring.” Maze dug a small pair of mittens out of her pocket and handed them to Trixie; the gloves were followed by a woolen hat and a scarf as long as Trixie was tall. “Come on, little human. I’ll show you what a snowball’s chance in Hell _really_ is.” Maze narrowed her eyes and grinned one of her more dangerous grins. “You’re going down, Decker.”

As Maze followed Trixie out into the snow, Chloe heard her daughter cry, “Maze! Let’s make snow angels!”

Maze hissed. “Only if we get to stab them.”

Chloe turned to help Lucifer with the bags, but a pair of uniformed valets had already appeared, and one was helping the other load their luggage onto a brass cart.

“We worried you wouldn’t make it, Mr. Morningstar. They’ve closed the roads behind you.”

“I was … determined,” Lucifer said, handing them each the kind of tip that probably made working over the Christmas holiday worthwhile. “The others?”

“Arrived hours ago. Shall I show you to your rooms?”

Lucifer nodded, and as Chloe fell into step with him, she asked quietly, “Others?”

“Your spawn was rather … specific, Detective.”

Before Chloe could question him further, she was—rather literally—silenced by the _thwack_ of a snowball hitting the back of her head. Icy water trickled down her neck. Beside her, Lucifer dug into the pockets of his wool coat and retrieved a pair of gloves. He moved unhurriedly, gracefully; then he bent at the waist, retrieved a handful of snow that he packed into a compact ball, and sent it flying into the dark. A moment later, Mazikeen howled.

Lucifer offered his arm; Chloe took it, smiling up at him. 

#

The snow continued to fall. In the lodge, huge fires roared in the stone fireplaces, and hundreds of candles lit the surfaces. Instead of Mariah Carey or Michael Buble, live music supplied by a pianist and harpist filled the air. In one corner, an enormous Christmas tree was decorated like something out of a magazine; even without electric lights, it glimmered, beautiful baubles catching every flicker of firelight and throwing it back a thousand-fold. Instead of a star, an angel perched at the top of the tree, white-feathered wings outstretched. It had dark hair instead of the ubiquitous gold.

“Your touch?” Chloe asked.

Lucifer scowled. “Hardly.”

She bumped her shoulder against his, and he dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

He said, “We both know my fashion sense is superior in every way.”

She wondered if she could track down where the lodge had gotten their angel.

“So, this place. Last minute. Did someone owe you a favor?”

Lucifer chuckled. “I am capable of paying for things I desire, Detective.”

She blinked up at him. “But a place like this—”

“Well within the budget, I assure you.”

“Is there one?”

He grinned. “Of course not, darling.”

She looked around, not quite able to stop herself from _detecting_. “Are we the only people here?”

The grin widened. “Of course, darling.”

#

The others, as it happened, were Dan and Amenadiel and Charlotte and Ella and Linda; all, evidently, as surprised by the sudden all-expenses-paid winter wonderland trip as Chloe had been. After a Christmas Eve spent laughing and talking and sharing stories of Christmases past—Lucifer’s kept to PG-13 after the application of Mom Look #8: My Daughter Is Listening—they stumbled and wove their ways to their rooms. Trixie’s was wedged between Chloe’s and Dan’s; apparently part of the deal had been a room of her own with a balcony so she could watch the show fall and wait for Santa to come.

“Mommy,” Trixie said, already half-asleep, “I like snow at Christmastime.”

“So do I, Monkey,” Chloe said, kissing her daughter’s drowsy brow. “So do I.”

The next morning, after gifts had been unwrapped—far too many for Trixie, but Chloe couldn’t feel bad about anything that made her daughter so giddily happy—and brunch eaten, everyone tumbled out into the snow, engaging in a cutthroat every-being-for-themselves snowball war. Trixie won, though Chloe was fairly certain it was because every single adult helped her even as they were trying to murder each other via liberal application of frozen water.

Afterward, over drinks and laughter; still pink-cheeked with cold, Lucifer sat at the piano, and they ran through every carol they knew—and many Chloe didn’t. For once, Lucifer didn’t balk from mentions of his Father; he sang “O Holy Night” with—

Well. With the voice of an angel, really.

He even sang “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” for Trixie. Five times. And “Frosty, the Snowman” another four.

He grimaced when Amenadiel asked for “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” but he did it.

The kitchen, undaunted by their ongoing state of powerlessness, presented a Christmas dinner better than any Chloe’d ever had in her life. Everyone pulled Christmas crackers and wore silly tissue-paper crowns—even Lucifer. “Not quite a throne,” he murmured into her ear, while their friends laughed and drank and conversed. “But it will do.”

Later, when Chloe knocked on the door separating their adjoining rooms, Lucifer opened the door so quickly she half-thought he’d been standing on the other side, just waiting. Or perhaps he’d been about to knock on hers. She wore the red silk robe that had been one of his ridiculously extravagant gifts to her. His gaze softened and then burned hot; she slipped around him to stop herself from jumping him then and there.

“Drink, Detective?”

She nodded, hardly noticing what he poured her. She sat in front of his fireplace and didn’t bother covering the leg left bare by the way her robe fell. He sat on her other side, and she didn’t miss the way his gaze followed the long line of her bared thigh.

“So, now that it’s over, are you going to tell me what it was all about? This … deal you made with my daughter?”

“Who says it’s over?” Lucifer asked, voice low. She shifted as heat pooled in her belly and rose to her cheeks.

“Lucifer.”

“Though I suppose you are the only one who can say.”

“ _Lucifer_.”

When he lifted his eyes to meet hers, her breath caught at the tenderness in them. “Did you have a good day, Detective?”

“You know I did.”

“But were you happy?”

Reaching out, she settled the pads of her fingertips feather-light against his cheekbone. “Yes,” she said, knowing he needed to hear the word. He turned his head just enough to press a kiss into her palm.

“Then Beatrice and I were successful.”

Her breath caught. “Lucifer…”

“She can be quite devious, your offspring.” He smiled. “Turning off the electricity was her idea.”

“And what does she owe you?”

“Oh,” he replied, eyes tracking from her face, down the V of her robe’s neck, and then up and down her leg. “I believe, in this instance, I am the one who owes her.”

Eyes prickling with tears, Chloe rose to her feet, the silk robe rippling around her. She drank down the last of the drink Lucifer had poured her before setting the glass down. Very, very slowly, Chloe untied the sash at her waist and let the robe drop from her shoulders.

Lucifer laughed.

Under the robe, she wore a tiny red and white costume that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

No beard.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered, doing a little shimmy. He leaned back against the sofa, groaning, watching her with eyes so dark and intent she could feel herself melting in a way that had nothing to do with the fire at her back. “I’m not doing a can-can.”

“Ho ho ho,” replied Lucifer. “I ought to warn you—I’m most certainly on the naughty list.”

“Mmm,” said Chloe, crossing over and letting him pull her onto his lap. “I ought to warn you—so am I.”


End file.
